Nahw - Attached Pronouns: their Grammatical States

A pronoun is a substitute of for a noun. Thus, you can say This is Zaid’s book or you can say This is his
book, the his being the pronoun. Similarly, you can say I gave the book to Zaid and Amr as well as I
gave the book to them, the them being the pronoun here.
In Arabic we can have two forms of a pronoun: attached and detached. An example of each is:

‫ ﻫﹹﻮﹶ ﻃﹷﺎﻟﹻﺐﹲ‬He is a student (detached pronoun)

‫ ابنه ﻣﹹﺠﺘﻬﹻﺪﹲ‬His son is hardworking (attached pronoun)

In this post I will show, Insha Allah, how we can determine the grammatical state of attached pronouns.
There are a total of 14 attached pronouns, same number as the verb conjugations. However, the
attached pronouns for 3rd person dual masculine and dual feminine, as well as those for 2nd person
dual masculine and dual feminine, are the same. Thus, we are left with 14 - 2 = 12 attached pronouns to
deal with. The table below shows the listings for attached pronouns:

3rd Person Masculine Singular ‫ﻩﹸ‬

3rd Person Masculine dual ‫ﻫﹹﻤﺎ‬
3rd Person Masculine Plural ‫ﻫﹹﻢ‬
3rd Person Feminine Singular ‫ﻫﺎ‬
3rd Person Feminine dual ‫ﻫﹹﻤﺎ‬
3rd Person Feminine Plural ‫ﻫﹹﻦﱠ‬
2nd Person Masculine Singular ‫ک‬
2nd Person Masculine Dual ‫کﹸﻤﺎ‬
2nd Person Masculine Plural ‫کﹸﻢ‬
2nd Person Feminine Singular !‫ک‬
2nd Person Feminine Dual ‫کﹸﻤﺎ‬
2nd Person Feminine Plural "‫کﹸﻦ‬
1st Person Masculine/Feminine Singular ‫نی‬
1st Person Masculine/Feminine
‫نﺎ‬
Dual/Plural
One point to note about 1st Person Masculine/Feminine Singular: The ‫ نی‬ending is only attached to

verbs. For ‫ اسﻢ‬and ‫( حرف‬preposition) the ending is a simple ‫ ی‬. I will, Insha Allah, provide an

explanation for this shortly.

Grammatical States of attached pronouns:

Why do we need to determine grammatical states for attached pronouns? The answer to this question is

that these attached pronouns lack endings. For example, we can say ‫ ﺯﹶﻳﺪﹲ‬and right away know that this

is a case of ‫ رفع‬because of the dhamma at the end. However, the attached pronouns cannot have

dhamma, fatha,or kasra as their endings: ‫ کﹸﻤﺎ‬will always be ‫ کﹸﻤﺎ‬and ‫ نﺎ‬will always be ‫ نﺎ‬, for example.

We cannot stick a dhamma, fatha, or kasra at their end to reflect grammatical states. Yet, we know that

attached pronouns do possess grammatical states, an example of which is ‫ ﺿﹷرﹶبﹿﺘﹹﻬﹹﻢ‬which means I

hit them. Clearly, I, the pronoun, is the subject here and them is the object and thus has to have

grammatical states in Arabic. Other examples of the same pronoun in the three grammatical states

would be:

1. ‫( ﺿ ربنﺎ‬zarab’na): we hit. Here ‫ نﺎ‬is in ‫ رفع‬since it is the subject of hitting

2. ‫(ﺿ ر ب نﺎ‬zarabana): he hit us. Here ‫ نﺎ‬is in ‫ نصﺐ‬since it is the object of hitting

3. ‫( ﺁﻟﹻﻬٰﺘﹻنﺎ‬aalihatina): our gods. Here ‫ نﺎ‬is in ‫ جر‬since it is ‫ ﻣضﺎف اﹺﻟﹷﻴه‬.

Rule for determining Grammatical States of attached pronouns
The pronoun will either be attached to a verb or a non-verb. If it is attached to a verb then it will either

be from the endings we learned in ‫ صرف‬or it won’t. If it is, then ‫ رفع‬on the basis of either ‫ فﺎعل‬or ‫نﺎئﺐ‬

‫( فﺎعل‬deputy doer). If it isn’t, then ‫ن ص ﺐ‬on the basis of ‫ﻣفعﻮل به‬

If it is attached to an ‫ اسﻢ‬then its Grammatical State would be ‫ جر‬on the basis of ‫ﻣضﺎف اﹺﻟﹷﻴه‬.

If it is attached to ‫ حرف‬then it could be attached to either a preposition or one of the ‫ إن‬sisters. If it is

attached to a preposition then ‫ جر‬because of being the object of that preposition. If it is attached to one

of the ‫ إن‬sisters then its Grammatical State would be ‫ن ص ﺐ‬on the basis of ‫إسﻢ إن‬

These rules are depicted diagrammatically in the following chart (click to enlarge):

Examples:
Pronoun attached to a verb:
Attached pronoun with the ‫ صرف‬table ending: ‫(ﺿ ر بنﺎ‬zarab’na: we hit). Here ‫ نﺎ‬is ‫ فﺎعل‬because it is the

doer of hitting. This is conjugation number 13 from the ‫ صرف‬table.

Attached pronoun with ending not from the ‫ صرف‬table: ‫ (ﻳﹷﺬﹾﻛﹹرﹸﻫﹹﻢ‬mentioning them). Here ‫ ﻫﹹﻢ‬is in

‫ نصﺐ‬because it is the ‫ ﻣفعﻮل به‬of mentioning.The catch here is that the ‫ صرف‬tables only talks about we

and not about them; in other words, we do not have a conjugation in the ‫ صرف‬tables which translates to

anything relating to them. Thus, this is an example where we have a pronoun attached to a verb-ending
which cannot be found in the ‫ صرف‬tables.

Pronoun attached to a non-verb:

• Attached to an ‫اسﻢ‬: e.g. ‫(ک!ﺘﺎب کﹸﻢ‬your book). This is a possessive phrase so the attached pronoun

is in the state of ‫جر‬

• Attached to a ‫ حرف‬: This can have two instances:

• Attached to a preposition: e.g. ‫( فﻴه‬in it), ‫ (ﻣﹻنﻬﹹﻢ‬for them). Here the attached pronoun is

in the state of ‫ جر‬because in and it are the objects of their respective prepositions

• Attached to an ‫ إن‬sister: e.g. ‫( اﹺنﳲﻜﹹﻢ‬you are). Here you is ‫ إسﻢ إن‬, thus it is in the state of ‫نصﺐ‬

Note on the use of the ‫ نی‬ending in the 13th conjugation:

In Arabic if we want to say my book, we will say ‫ ; ک!ﺘﺎبی‬however, if we want to say I hit, we will say

‫ﺿ ر ب نی‬
. Notice the extra ‫ ن‬which is used when a verb is used with an attached pronoun in the 13th

conjugation. Recall that ‫ اسﻢ‬can experience grammatical states in Arabic because of governing agents.

For verbs, however, only the ‫ ﻣضﺎرع‬verb experiences grammatical state and that only of ‫ جزم‬: it cannot

take the state of ‫ رفع‬or ‫ نصﺐ‬or ‫ جر‬. Yet, the 13th conjugation dictates that the verb takes a kasra, since

this conjugation ends in a ‫ ی‬. It is to protect the verb from taking the kasra (and thus undergoing ‫جر‬,

which it cannot) that an extra ‫ ن‬is inserted. This extra ‫ ن‬does not have a meaning of its own; it is simply
used as a means of protecting the verb from undergoing a grammatical state which a verb is not

allowed to take.